Forty years ago, on this day, December 19th, 1985,
“On December 19, 1985, Congress set aside nearly $400 million for the government’s share of funds for “constructing and operating facilities to demonstrate the feasibility of their future clean coal commercial application” (Public Law No. 99-190).”
(DoE 1992) Department of Energy. 1992. Clean Coal Technology: A New Era. Washington DC: Department of Energy. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015041771992;view=1up;seq=5
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 346ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the cleanliness/dirtyness of coal had been a “local” problem for, well, since it started to be burned. The Donora fog was one clear (see what I did there?) example. But other pressures were building, including acid rain (the Canadians were pissed off) and our friend anthropogenic global warming. In the late 1970s interest in carbon capture and storage had begun…. By the early 1980s the International Energy Agency was doing “clean coal” seminars and workshops.
The specific context was people didn’t let Reagan’s alleged enthusiasm for small states and free-markets get in the way of taxpayer funding of research and development moolah…
What I think we can learn from this – the clean coal rhetoric has been around for yonks.
What happened next – all the technology was delivered under-budget and ahead of schedule, worked perfectly and coal is now super-dooper clean.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
December 19, 1988 – the launch of “Ark”
December 19, 1991- Will UN negotiations go as usual and “commit us to global catastrophe”?